I watched them from my throne.
Shadow clinging to me as I sat upon the steel forged from the blades and skulls of those who had rebelled.
Six figures stood at the far end of the hall, framed by the shattered doors they had forced open to reach me. Light spilled in behind them, cutting long shadows across the obsidian floor. Blood stained their armor already. Not just my subordinates blood alone.
They had come far and fought most of the way.
I rested my chin against my hand and regarded them in silence, letting the weight of the throne room press down on their spirits. Power hummed through the air, thick enough to make their breathing feel labored. The walls whispering, the shadows always listening.
At the center of the group stood the hero.
His posture was straight, his grip firm around the hilt of his sword. Even exhausted, even wounded, he radiated a stubborn kind of resolve. The blade in his hands gleamed faintly, its edge alive with a pale, steady light.
I smiled.
"You have come," I said at last. "I was expecting you."
The hero stepped forward, placing himself half a pace ahead of the others.
"Aye," he said, voice steady despite the fear thrumming beneath it. "We have come to finish off your tyranny for good."
I tilted my head.
"And you think you have the strength to do that?" I asked calmly. "What gives you that confidence?"
My gaze slid past him, over the companions at his back. The mage clutching her staff too tightly. The knight with blood soaking through his side. The priest whispering prayers under his breath.
They were nervous, the shadows could smell it, it wanted to hunt them, to devour and satisfy it's cravings.
I ignored it.
"The team members at your back?" I continued.
Then my eyes returned to the sword.
"Or is it the holy blade Nihifliem," I said, pronouncing the name with practiced ease, "the sword that feeds on conviction and heroism?"
The hero's jaw tightened.
"No," he said. "My confidence comes from the fact that evil will never triumph over good. In the end, the side that holds the light always wins."
For a moment, the hall was silent.
Then I laughed.
It started low, a quiet sound in my chest, before breaking free into something louder, harsher. The walls carried it. The shadows echoed it. The laughter rolled through the throne room until it drowned out the sound of their breathing.
"Hahahahahahahahaha!"
I wiped at the corner of my eye, still smiling.
"Such naivety," I said. "Good. Bad. Right. Wrong."
I stood, letting the throne scrape softly against stone behind me.
"They are all faces of the same coin."
I descended the steps slowly, deliberately.
"To be either," I continued, "all one must do… is flip the coin."
Their formation tightened. Their weapons raised, spells readied they stood despite their fear. I could see that what made them going was faith. Faith in the hero, Faith in good, such naivety.
I stopped at the foot of the dais.
"But I suppose," I said softly, "I should show you why they call me the Demon King."
The darkness obeyed my command.
It surged outward from me, swallowing the light of their torches, smothering the glow of Nihifliem. The floor cracked beneath my feet. The pressure in the air became unbearable.
The first scream lasted less than a second.
Steel met shadow. Magic shattered. Bodies were flung like broken dolls across the hall. One by one, they fell—crushed, torn apart, reduced to lifeless forms staining the black stone red.
When it was over, the throne room was quiet again.
The hero remained.
Barely.
He stood amidst the carnage, shaking, bloodied, his companions lying dead or dying at his feet. Nihifliem trembled in his hands, its light flickering weakly now, feeding on a conviction that had begun to crack.
I walked toward him, stepping over corpses without looking down.
He raised his sword.
I took it from him.
It slipped from his fingers without resistance and clattered uselessly to the floor.
I leaned down, close enough for him to hear my breath.
"Before you try again," I said quietly, "let me tell you a story."
I turned back toward the throne.
"It's a story about contracts," I said.
"About sacrifice."
"And about what happens when the world takes away the only thing that made you want to save it."
I sat.
"This," I said softly, "is how I became the Demon King."